Railroad companies operate trains and control railroad traffic on track systems that may include thousands of miles of railroad tracks. In order to control the movement of trains on a track system in an efficient and safe manner, railroad companies may utilize a movement planner. The movement planner may include, or reference, a track database that contains information relating to track topography, which is also referred to as the track profile data. The track profile data stored in the database includes, among other things, grade data, track curvature data, and geographic coordinates of various points or segments of the track. In addition to the track profile data, the movement planner takes into account a list of scheduled activities, such as the times associated with origination, termination, crew change, engine change, train stop, assigned work, inspection and the like.
Based on the scheduled activities and the track profile data stored in the track database, the movement planner generates events such as meets, passes, railroad crossing at grade, planned hold, and safe space. A meet-pass involves planning the meet locations where trains traveling in opposite directions can get past each other. It also involves determining the pass locations where a fast train can get past a slower train traveling in the same direction.
In connection with the above, certain vehicle routes are outfitted with wayside signal devices that influence the travel of rail vehicles within the track system. Wayside devices may include signals, switches and/or control devices for railroad operations housed within one or more enclosures located along the railroad right of way. Such devices are controllable to provide information to vehicles and vehicle operators traveling along the route. For example, a typical traffic control signal device might be controllable to switch between an illuminated green light, an illuminated yellow light, and an illuminated red light, which might be understood in the traffic system to mean “ok to proceed,” “prepare to stop,” and “stop,” respectively, for example.
At certain times, it may be desirable to update the software of the wayside devices or to alter the configuration of one or more of such devices. To ensure safety, however, updating and configuring the devices may only be carried out when there are no assets in the area. Accordingly, updating and configuring such devices typically involves sending a technician to the location of the device to be updated, manually inspecting the track to ensure it is clear, communicating with a central office by radio to ensure there are no assets in the area or expected in the area within an predetermined window, and manually pushing a software update to the device after establishing a physical communication link with the device. As will be readily appreciated, however, this process is inefficient, time consuming and requires substantial manpower to service the large number of devices along thousands of miles of tracks.